Lovely Little Lambs
by whatsamatta
Summary: Shepherdess, makes quite a mess, but little lambs are lovely . . . He once had a family. A happy little family in a cottage in the Second Kingdom. But these are dark times, and Wolves were always hated.


_**Disclaimer: I know this is a bit out of my set pigeon hole of cartoons, but I've had this in my head for about a week now, and just want to get it out there. And a quick glance told me that many other writers have taken on this idea, so kudos to them (sorry I haven't read any yet). As to my whoring of the fandoms, let's just say I'm the type of writer that goes wherever my imagination takes me. So please review. How will I get better if you don't?**_

_**~O~**_

He could remember them being happy. Laughter and smiles often took up his memory of that early childhood. If he could cut through the haze he could see sometimes a modest creek, sometimes apple trees and yellow rose bushes – each scene always flooded with sunlight. And their names, he remember those too: Talmage and Alice. They were good people, loving parents.

Talmage was a cobbler, and always smelled of leather and earth. He had built them a small cottage on the outskirts of a little village not unlike that of the Little Lamb Village where the Peeps dwell, deep within the Second Kingdom. Just close enough to be inconspicuous, but just far enough away that they could be comfortable within the forests.

He was a quiet man, caring and withdrawn. A man who barely spoke a monologue a day, yet had this special sort of unspoken language with Alice. The way he held her with tired hands – or looked at her with smoldering eyes, or sniffed the crook of her neck with slow sensuality – spoke volumes louder than any words.

For all that he wasn't, his wife certainly was. Vocal and brash, Alice was friendly with all the neighbors and playful with their children. He could remember playing out in the sunlight and the grass, being chased by Alice and his brothers while Talmage sat on the steps to the porch and watched. He supposed that he was wrong to call them enormous, for they weren't, at least not physically. While they had ridiculously large appetites, in no way did that match the size of their hearts.

There were other memories too. Swimming naked in that same creek back behind the cottage. Following Alice and Talmage through the trees to a nearby clearing to bay at the moon. Watching Alice tend to the small garden while Talmage fished.

But his favorite memory would have to be when it was late at night, and Alice would put the children to bed. Talmage would be downstairs, working on a pair of boots, and they could hear the magical sounds of the leather bending and the hammer shaping. Alice sat in the chair by the stairs, reading to them from a book whose details no longer matter. The sound of her soft voice coupled with the work below would lull the children to sleep. Sometimes, if one of them grew restless in the night, she would lean over the covers and sing gently into their ears.

". . . _shepherdess makes quite a mess, but little lambs are lovely . . . _"

He often regretted not being able to remember the rest of that soft lullaby. Besides his memories, that was the only thing he had left of them. Well, there was Talmage's pewter pocket watch, which Colin had daringly returned to that little cottage to get, but now both were lost.

_Colin_.

He could still remember his brothers, too; Colin, Tames, Jonah and Wilhelm, and then later Adelle. She was the baby, and coincidentally the only daughter born to Talmage and Alice. He didn't lie to that loose Peep girl Sally when he said his name was Warren – it was, and it is. It was only his last name – Wolfson? That was the best he could do? – on which he lied. Truth be told he couldn't remember the family name. It was only from the older boys that he remembered his name at all, he was so young when it happened.

Probably the one memory his hates completely but recalls the most. _The calls of angry villagers violated the peaceful morning. His mother, who had been cooking bacon with that song on her lips, suddenly stopped and sniffed the air, quieting her children with a hand. They had never seen her so serious, not their mother. Suddenly their father pushed open the door, catching the gaze of his wife. In that instant she knew. It didn't matter how the villagers discovered their secret, only that they now knew, and were coming for her family, her pack, and she and her husband had to do something, something to protect their pups and –_

"_Colin, take your brothers and sister and run into the woods. Do not stop running, do not turn back, no matter what." She ordered as her thirteen year old and eldest nodded, not daring to argue or question his mother when she became so serious. Rounding up his younger siblings, he ushered them outside, but it was Warren who stalled._

"_Mamma?" he whined wolfishly, green eyes large as his mother bent down and kissed his forehead with sorrow._

"_No Warren, you must go with your brothers and Adelle." She warned off, pushing him towards Colin and Tames, but the young wolf did not want to part with his mother._

"_Alice!" the urgent callings of his father mixed with the uproar of the angry mob, and Alice turned her head in the direction of her husband. They met eyes again, and she nodded with regret._

"_Go, now!" with that, she pushed the small seven year old into the arms of Colin, watching as her six children disappeared into the forest. Within minutes she and her husband were surrounded, bound, and taken to the center square of the village, where she knew what waited for them._

_Her children did not completely obey her, although they didn't completely disobey her either. Following alongside the path but still within the woods, they trailed the villagers and the farmers, watching from the bushes and the thicket as they tied their mother to the center pole. Kindling was piled around her while her arms were fixed around the oak wood in a way that almost seemed impossible. _

_They made him watch, they made Talmage watch as they struck a flame and began the ceremony of burning his wife alive._

"_Alice!" he cried frantically, eyes wide with grief and anger as she put up a brave face and even smiled. Smiled at the faces of the friends who had so easily forgotten their relationships with her and her husband, especially in the face of wolf charges. No trials were needed with the court of public opinion._

"_Talmage." Even with her flesh overheating and burning, her skin charred and eyes filled with painful tears, she was able to smile. And then her screams erupted throughout the village. Cheers went up with the flames as Alice's movements picked up before slowing, and Talmage and her children could only look on as the fire was snuffed out and her blackened body was removed. _

_It was then her husband's turn, and the executioner's party was disappointed when he didn't cry out or scream as the flames ate him alive. He just stood stoic and quiet as always, eyes fixated on the remains of his mate._

_Colin and Tames had to hold Warren back, and hand over his mouth as he fought to try and save his parents. Jonah and Wilhelm had taken Adelle away from the tree line, making a last-ditch effort protect her from the violent hatred of the world, if only for a little while longer. _

The bodies of his parents were dumped somewhere, he never learned the location. The siblings remained together for a few years, before tragedy again gripped the family. Wilhelm was the first; he had wandered off in the middle of the night just before the full moon. Adelle whined and cried for a week, and by the seventh day she as well as her brothers had accepted the fact that they would never see him again.

And they didn't.

Tames was next. He and Colin had been out catching sheep from nearby farmers, and had been captured by those pesky farmers. They burned him in the same manner as they did their parents. Then went Colin, who was shot and killed by the Huntsman when he was caught poaching for food. Jonah was falsely imprisoned in the Snow White Memorial Prison, and was later executed for those same charges before he could speak with legal counsel. Warren later realized, when he found himself locked within that damned prison, that he had been placed in the same cell as his late older brother.

It was when he became the last man of the family whose name he no longer remembered, with Adelle relying on him that he knew something had to change. With a heavy heart, he sent his sister to the Castle of the House of White where she would be cared for – on the condition that she not tell a soul who she was the daughter of. Last he heard, she was working in the kitchens and being wooed by a clumsy kitchen boy.

And he was happy for her, that of the entire pack she somehow managed to escape the cruel hand of fate which adored their family. He thought about her, about them, often. At least every day, as he looked out that small window of his cell, he thought about the life they may or may not have led. About Talmage. And About Alice.

_**~O~**_

"You never told me about your parents, well, other than how they, well, you know. What were they like?" Virginia asked while chopping the celery that would serve as garnish for the roast she was preparing. Her husband, who had be previously been pacing around the kitchen, suddenly became quiet. Both suspicious and concerned, she turned to meet his eyes, but found that he was staring out the window at Central Park at night. He seemed frozen in time, scarcely breathing, and for a moment she thought he hadn't heard her. She was about to ask again, when he suddenly spoke.

"My father was a cobbler, and my mother was a gardener." He had a faint smile on his lips, forcing the painful and traumatic memories away from his mind. This time he would not let them dominate.

"Oh?" her question went unasked.

"Talmage and Alice. They were true life mates."

_**~O~**_


End file.
